


If You Believe

by websters_lieb



Series: The Ever After [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, Pre-Relationship, because I need Eddie to live okay, except for the end, it chapter 2 compliant, like you can tell that they're into each other but right now it's more about surviving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-11 06:23:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20541563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/websters_lieb/pseuds/websters_lieb
Summary: What if Eddie held on just a little bit longer? What if the losers figured out how to kill it just a little bit earlier? What if Eddie made it out of Neibolt, injured and barely holding on, but alive?-When Eddie emerges from the cavern to see Richie floating, he just about shits himself.





	If You Believe

When Eddie emerges from the cavern to see Richie floating, he just about shits himself.

_ ‘Do you want Richie to die?’ _ He hears in his ear. ‘ _ Do you want him to die too?’ _

** _‘No_ ** ,’ he thinks. ‘ _ Of course I don’t want Richie to fucking die _ **.’ **Richie is just about Eddie’s favorite person in the whole damn world, despite the nearly three decades of separation. 

But he’s scared. 

Eddie doesn’t believe he’s ever been a particularly brave man, and something about coming back to Derry has only made it worse. Maybe it’s just the normal terror that comes from being attacked by a psychotic alien clown monster, but it feels like the terror is growing from inside a deep pit in his chest. 

_ ‘It changed us,’ _ he thinks. _ ‘But we changed it too.’ _

He feels the cold metal of the iron bar Beverly had given him against the skin of his palms. ‘_ It kills monsters. If you believe it does.’ _She had said.

“This kills monsters" He whispers to himself. "If you believe it does.” He grips the metal tighter, pressing his back against the rough stone of this disgusting fucking pit as he breathes deeply.

“If you believe it does.”

Bev had injured it once, he remembers, the first time they fought it together. He had been delirious from fear and pain, but he remembers her yell as she stabbed it through the head. He remembers how it had slinked back, lashing out but clearly defensive instead of offensive.

“If you believe, it does.”

There hadn’t been anything special about this particular weapon, but there had been something special about Bev. She had been the bravest of them, the one who most believed that they had the ability to kill Pennywise. 

“If you believe.”

It’s just a fucking clown. It feeds off their beliefs, what they’re afraid of, and that what made it powerful. But right now it has Richie in its deadlights and Eddie isn’t just afraid, he’s _ pissed _, and he’s going to kill this fucking clown.

“It does.”

Eddie pushes off the wall and runs forward, pulling his arm back and tightening his hold on the metal bar impossibly further. He aims and he throws, yelling, "_Beep beep, motherfucker_!" as he does so, and somehow his aim is true, and Pennywise staggers backwards and falls, and Richie tumbles out of the air.

“Rich!” Eddie yells, scrambling over the slippery stone towards the black haired boy. He falls to his knees next to Richie and grabs at his shoulders. Richie’s eyes are entirely white, like they have rolled back in his head, and his face is slack.

“Come on, Rich!” Eddie says, shaking his friend’s shoulders, “Wake up.”

Richie’s face tenses and he lets out a groan, blinking his eyes, which have returned to normal.

“Yeah, there he is, buddy!” Eddie exclaims, “Hey, Richie, listen. I think I got him, man! I think I killed it! I did! I think-”

Something is poking through the front of his chest.

Eddie tries to speak, but he doesn’t seem to be able to push any words through his lips. 

His blood spatters onto Richie’s chest. Richie’s eyes are wide and terrified.

"Richie." Eddie manages to say, more than a whimper than a word. "Rich-"

Eddie feels himself being yanked backwards, a throbbing pain radiating from the hole in his chest - _ holy shit there’s a fucking hole in his chest he’s going to die he’s going to die _ \- as he is swung around the cavern like a puppet. He can hear the losers screaming, shouting his name. He hears Richie’s voice, and then he’s flying. His body hits the floor spinning and he tumbles down a tunnel. When he comes to a stop, he detachedly feels his own blood seeping across his chest. It’s warm. He knows he’s in pain, more pain than he has ever experienced in his entire life, but he’s separate from it, far away. _ Shock _ , his brain supplies helpfully, _ you’re in shock _.

He feels hands at his shoulders, his face, and when he opens his eyes - _ when had he closed them _ \- he sees Richie’s panicked face. “Eds!” He exclaims, “Oh shit, guys, he’s hurt really bad. We gotta- we gotta get him out of here.”

Eddie feels something press into his chest and _ it hurts it hurts it hurts _ and when he looks down, Richie is pressing his jacket into the wound. _ Applying pressure _.

Eddie tries to focus, but he feels drunk, or hypoglycemic, does blood loss make you hypoglycemic? He’s surely anemic by now, that can’t be good.

“Come on Eds,” Richie is saying, “We gotta move, just lean on me, I’ve got you bud, come on.”

Eddie allows his arm to be slung around Richies shoulder, and he gasps in _ pain pain pain _ but tries to help himself along, to make his legs work, as Richie drags him through a cavern, other hands are grabbing at him and helping him along as they move, but Richie’s attention is constant. “You’re gonna be okay Eds, come on.” Richie keeps saying, his motor mouth is going at a thousand miles an hour, spewing reassurances like the vomit that the leper had spewed across Eddie in the pharmacy basement.

The leper.

Eddie feels himself being lowered down, the jacket being more firmly pressed to his chest, but he doesn’t pay any attention to it, he has to speak. 

“I almost killed him.” He says, and the losers all focus their attention on him. “The leper. My hands were at his throat, and I- I could feel him choking. I made him small.” He takes a rasping breath. “He seemed so weak. He seemed-” A cough tears itself from his chest. _ Pain pain pain pain _.

As Richie tries to sooth Eddie, Mike seems to catch on, “All living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit.” He says, and Beverly nods.

“The tunnel.” She says. “Pennywise has to make himself small to get through the entrance of the cavern, right? So-”

“No!” Eddie interrupts. If only he can _ explain_, if only he can _ speak_. “He’s what we believe.” 

Eddie looks at Bev, trying to make her understand, “If we believe.” He coughs. Fuck. “He’s what we believe.”

Her eyes widen. “If you believe, it does.” She whispers, and at the questioning looks from the rest of the losers, she says, “He has no power but what we give him. He’s big and frightening because we came here to kill a terrifying monster.” She looks at Richie, a little grin pulling at her lips. “But he’s just a fucking clown.”

She stands, and walks to the mouth of the cave that they were sheltered in, and shouts towards the raging monster.

“Hey asshole!” She hollers, “Over here.”

“Beverly what are you-” Bill tries to ask, but Ben has stood as well, walking to stand by Beverly’s shoulder as Pennywise scrambles towards them on his horrifying spider legs.

“You’re just a clown!” He shouts, and Pennywise stops for a second, then laughs.

“I am the eater of worlds!” It claims in its sing song voice. “And I’m going to kill you all.”

“No,” Adds Mike in his deep steady voice, moving to stand next to Ben, “You’re just a clown.”

“You’re an imposter,” Bill shouts, taking his place beside the others.

“A fucking joke!” Richie yells from his place next to Eddie.

“A weak old leper!” Eddie pitches in, and then they’re all shouting recriminations, and Pennywise is shrinking, his limbs spinning and his bones twisting in impossible ways.

“I am the eater of worlds!” It howls, so small now, the size of a baby, it’s head far too large for its body. 

“No,” Says Mike, stepping forwards, “You’re just a bully with a beating heart.” And then Mike reaches down, his hand sinking into the thing’s chest, grasping and pulling and when he yanks his hand back he is holding a franticly beating heart. The thing on the floor howls in pain and despair. 

Mike walks back towards Eddie, and the others follow. He holds out his hand, and Beverly puts hers on top of his, and the heart. Ben moves next, then Bill, then Richie, and then Eddie reaches forward and places his hand on the very top. And then they squeeze. It’s fucking gross, blood and the slimy flesh of the organ squishing between their hands, but as they do it, the light in the cavern - _ the deadlights _ \- seem to fade. By the time they drop the mangled heart, it’s almost completely dark.

Beverly flips on her flashlight, and Richie smiles, “We did it,” He says, “I think we really fucking did it.”

And then, because apparently they can never have a fucking break, stones start to fall from the ceiling. 

“We have to go,” Bill says, pulling at Richie’s arm, and Richie nods.

“Help me with him,” Richie says, and the losers surge forward to help drag Eddie to his feet. By this point he’s too weak to walk, so Ben and Richie end up lifting Eddie between them. If Eddie had thought that he had been in pain before, he is in agony now. He finds himself begging to be let down.

“Just leave me, please” He pants, and Richie tells him to shut the fuck up, and then it’s all whipping by _ too fast too fast _ . They’re in the sewers. They’re finding their way back to the well, and Bill goes up into Neibolt and throws down a rope. It’s being knotted around Eddie’s chest and he’s being pulled _ up up up _ as Richie tries his best to support him from below, and then they’re stumbling out of the house and Richie is carrying him bridal style as the house on Neibolt street collapses behind them. 

Eddie’s last sight before everything goes dark is the dust rising from the ruins of the demolished house.

-

Pain.

Everything fucking hurts. The pain radiates out from the center of his chest down to the tips of his fingers and toes. His face hurts where he had been stabbed by Bowers, his head hurts from his tumble down the cavern, and his entire body feels like a fucking bruise.

But he appears to be alive. He has to be alive to be in this much pain, and when he opens his eyes, sure enough, the world comes into focus around him. He’s in a hospital room, that much is familiar to him, and when to looks to his left his eyes land Richie on sitting hunched over in a seat next to Eddie’s bed. Ben and Beverly are sitting on the floor nearby, leaning against the wall, but Mike and Bill are nowhere to be found. Richie looks over at the movement, and upon seeing Eddie awake, his mouth falls open.

“Hey Rich,” Eddie croaks.

“Eds!” He cries, “Oh shit, you’re awake, they said that you would wake up but I was starting to think that we had a case of sleeping beauty on our hands!”

“You better not have kissed me while I was unconscious,” Eddie deadpans, but he can feel a smile twitching at his lips.

“Hey! I’d do whatever it takes to save your life, even if it means cheating on your mom.” 

Ben and Bev are standing now, smiling at Eddie and Richie, and then at each other.

Eddie forces himself to get serious, “Did we do it?” He asks, “Is it dead?”

Richie nods, “Yeah Eds, and we couldn’t have done it without you, you badass.”

Eddie smiles, then winces at the pain in his cheek. Richie narrows his eyes.

“I’m gonna go get a nurse, see if they can get you some of those good drugs.” Richie says, and he lightly presses his fingers to the pulse point on Eddie’s wrist before standing and leaving the room.

Eddie turns his attention to Bev and Ben. “Where are Mike and Bill?” He asks, “Are they okay? They got out, right? I remember that they got out.”

“They’re fine,” Beverly replies soothingly, “They’re just downstairs, Bill said that Mike should get his arm properly treated so they went to to ER to get him some stitches after they knew that you were going to be okay.”

Eddie nods, letting go of the fear that he had been holding on to. “It’s over, it’s really over.”

“Yeah,” Ben agrees, “It’s weird, but I’ve felt lighter, ever since the deadlights went out. I think it’s really done this time.”

The relief that floods through his body is better than whatever drugs they’ve got him on. There isn’t much for him to say, so Eddie goes silent and tries to listen as Ben and Beverly talk about the last 27 years of their lives, about their childhoods, about everything and nothing, and then Richie is barreling back into the room with a nurse, talking a mile a minute, alternating between making snarky jokes and appearing genuinely worried about Eddie’s wellbeing as the nurse adjusts the tubes connected to Eddie’s arm and then turns up his morphine drip with a smile and a “There you go sweetheart.”

“Hey Richie,” Eddie interjects quietly as the nurse leaves and he can feel the morphine starting to kick in. Richie’s eyes lock on Eddie. “I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah, okay, Eds, what’s up? You okay?” Richie asks, and Eddie beckons him forward so that Richie is leaning down with his face close to Eddie’s. 

Eddie takes a deep breath.

“I fucked your mother.” 

Richie stares at Eddie for a second, and then his face breaks into a Cheshire grin. “Oh, _ shit _!” He yelps, “Eddie gets off a good one!”

Eddie smiles as Ben and Beverly laugh along, and Richie starts talking again, keeping up the good mood. They are all battered and beaten, and Stan is dead, and it’s all just a little bit awful, but as he watches his friends laugh at Richie’s jokes, Eddie truly believes that they all might just be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I do plan on making this a series and continuing their story, to give them all the happy endings they deserved, and of course, have them pay their respects to Stan, but this fic can be read as a standalone as well, and you can imagine how they go on from here however you want.
> 
> Also: I'm looking for a beta to help out for the upcoming longer fic I've planned out called "The Ever After" that follows up on their lives after this. I have a terrible habit of slipping into passive voice halfway through chapters and I need someone to catch me on my bullshit.


End file.
